Obama’s victory symbolises end of racial conflict: Gordimer

Kolkata, Nov 10 (IANS) US president-elect Barack Obama’s victory would symbolically represent an advancement in recognising the human tribe as one, Nadine Gordimer, Nobel prize-winning South African writer and political activist, said here Monday.Asked about her take on Obama’s victory in the US presidential election, she said: “He’s been celebrated as a black man. But it’s not being pointed out that he’s half black and half white. To me, it symbolically represents a kind of advancement in recognising the human tribe as one.”

Gordimer, now dealing with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa, was on a day’s visit to the city.

She was felicitated by the Ministry of External Affairs’ Public Diplomacy Division at the Kolkata Town Hall in the presence of External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee Mukherjee, West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and other dignitaries.

Appealing for the end of racism in the world, the Nobel laureate said the emergence of Obama, whose DNA has the blood of both whites and blacks, should see the racial divide melt into a unified human race.

Gordimer received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Most of her works deal with the moral and psychological tensions of her once racially divided home country. She is a founder member of Congress of South African Writers.

She was also very active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organisation was banned.